Study On The Western Geographic Environment Influence On Traffic During Qin And Han Dynasties

Northwestern China is abundant in plateau, mountain, grasslands and marsh; moreover, there are many high mountains, great rivers and jungles in the southwestern China. These features make the development of ancient traffic very difficult. The geographic environment, such as high mountain, river, desert and jungle, constitutes the natural obstacles of traffic development in west China. However,2000years ago, in Qin and Han dynasties, the ancients have already broken through these geographic obstacles through their own wisdom, and opened up the roads connect areas.Qin and Han dynasties achieve great success in developing west territory and expanding the traffic in the west, and a land and water traffic web that covers the entire empire forms. Qin dynasty opens up various ancient drive-way, straightaway of Qin, Wu Chi Road, and Lingguan ancient post-road; Han’s traffic web is based on the Qin’s, and adds Hui Zhong Road, Bao Xie Road, Meridian Road, Yelang Road, Yungchang Road, and the south and north silk road to it, make it a complete traffic network with the capital at its center and extend in all directions; as to the water transportation, Qin excavates Ling Canal, and Han digs Cao Canal, dredges the natural river courses. The investigation of various traffic activities and the influencing mechanism of corresponding geographic environment is instructive to the formulation of west traffic development strategy. This paper is divided into six parts to elaborate the impact of geographic environment on west traffic during Qin and Han dynasties.